


you are a beam of light

by alchemistique



Category: Polygon/McElroy Vlogs & Podcasts RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Alternate Universe - Scientists, Angst, Artificial Intelligence, Failed Experiments, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Polygon Labs, Robot/Human Relationships, Robots, The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known, mentions of the bad man but not by name, robot pat, scientist brian
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28282233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemistique/pseuds/alchemistique
Summary: You are a failing prototype. You’ve known this since the moment your core processor was switched on. Everything about you is faulty, from your wiring to your coding to the waxy skin that covers your chassis. Even your voice modulator, when activated, is jilted and static-y, half the words dying in your hard drive before they make it to your lips. This team has all but given up on you. They have more important work to do, with bots and AI that don’t spark and screech and jolt off the table. Models that function, the way you never will.You are P47-G1LL, and you will be given one last chance. You are not sure you want it.Brian is thrilled when he's invited back to Hopkins to intern for the prestigious Polygon Laboratories, but he never could have predicted the assignment that is P47-G1LL.
Relationships: Brian David Gilbert/Patrick Gill
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39
Collections: Polygolidays Gift Exchange 2020!





	you are a beam of light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trigonometrical](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trigonometrical/gifts).



> suuuuurpriiiiiiiise! i hope i fooled y'all >:3
> 
> man this was a struggle to get out, and it is a WIP for now, but i'm determined to see it through. sometimes you bite off more than you can chew but the desire to impress everyone in your discord server outweighs the desire to trash it all. everyone there is far, far too good to me, including trig. baby, this one's for you.
> 
> p.s. this is gonna have a lot of weird in-jokes from discord, but maybe everyone will get a laugh out of them anyway. we love you, patbot.
> 
> title and lyrics are by the beths, who've been fitting all my angsty fic needs these days.

_I hear you cry  
from the other side  
of a broadband line  
that cuts out and in  
two seconds behind  
you go quiet and say goodnight  
you go quiet and say goodnight_

_‘cause we live in darker times  
open my eyes so I can see brighter  
and you are a beam of light  
maybe that’s why your battery runs dry..._

◉

You know that you are P47-G1LL, and you know that you are not supposed to be awake.

You know that you are an AI—created and molded by man and machine, a facsimile of human life. You are prototype number forty-seven at the Polygon laboratories. You were powered down by Simone nearly two hours ago. It did not take.

You can hear her, now, moving around the dark edges of the lab, shuffling papers and packing her things for the night. Dr. Long’s voice is hushed when she responds to Simone’s question. You keep your eyes closed and let their susurrations fill the room. The few words that make it to your auditory processors are bitten off, contextless.

_“Give to—new intern—”_

_“Gilbert—he—otherwise we’ll—trash him—”_

You are a failing prototype. You have known this since the moment your core processor was switched on. Everything about you is faulty, from your wiring to your coding to the waxy skin that covers your chassis. Even your voice modulator, when activated, is jilted and static-y, half the words dying in your hard drive before they make it to your lips. This team has all but given up on you. They have more important work to do, with bots and AI that don’t spark and screech and jolt off the table. Models that function, the way you never will.

You are P47-G1LL, and you will be given one last chance. You are not sure you want it.

◉

Brian feels like an anime protagonist, the way he stands in front of the gleaming building that is Polygon Labs. With his hands on his waist, sporting his stiff new lab coat, grinning maniacally at the path before him, he feels like he should have brought a piece of toast.

It’s good to be back in Balti, breathing in the salt sea air coming off the harbor, filling his lungs with the taste and scent of home. He’d missed Hopkins and was thrilled to be invited back, after he’d finished his Master’s at MIT. Polygon, the newest partnership in robotics forged by Hopkins, had attracted a whirl of press attention, and Brian was to be one of their first interns. This position would comprise the bulk of his PhD work. Time to build some robots and become Dr. Gilbert. _Hell_ yeah.

Once inside, he’s quickly swept up in the first day fray, paperwork and tours and lighting-fast introductions. He keeps tripping over names and everyone insists he drop the doctor, but, well, he’s a polite boy.

Dr.—no, _Simone_ de Rochefort—will be advising him, he’s told, and after Dr. Long _(Tara, Tara)_ is finished collecting his forms, he’s lead to Lab #5, where he waits in fidgety silence for her to arrive. Simone breezes in minutes later, her hair swept back, heels clicking on the concrete floor, and she makes herself comfortable right in Brian’s space.

“We are _so_ excited to have you, wonder boy,” she gushes, taking his arm as they walk. “I read your file, and that dissertation from MIT, oh my gosh—”

“Th-thank you,” he blushes, trying to keep her pace. “It’s an honor to be here.” Before he can delve into his ramblings about stimulation experiments, Simone pushes open another door, along the back wall of the lab, and flicks on the lights. The words die in his throat, and they both go quiet.

In the center of a round, steel, freezing room, an AI lays motionless on a table. A complex series of monitors and wires surround it, and he feels the hum of electricity in his bones. All these years, and it still takes his breath away, to see one—he mostly did bots at MIT, though the department had a small group of fully-functioning AI that he rarely interacted with. They’d pass him in the halls, sleek and cold, intelligent eyes assessing and dismissing as they saw fit. It gives Brian a chill, to see one now, knowing it will be in his hands.

Simone makes no move toward it. “This is P47,” she begins quietly. “He was built almost a year ago. He doesn’t—work right.” Brian can tell Simone is choosing her words carefully, and that it pains her to speak about it. “All of us have been assigned to him at some point, most recently myself.”

Brian eyes the table warily. “What’s...wrong with him?” He feels bad as soon as he asks it. He tries his level best to treat AI with the same respect he’d treat a person, and it seems wrong to pry—but then, he’s the one who has to make a go of it, so—

Simone sighs. “Everything. His coding, mostly, will be your main focus. Something’s bad in the drive, a bug maybe, and none of us have ever cracked it. Gets into his wiring. Be warned, you’re gonna get zapped a few times.”

“Okay,” Brian says softly. He takes a cautious step forward, as if the AI will spook, even though he doesn’t appear to be powered on.

“Another thing,” Simone says. “He doesn’t always...turn off?”

Sensing a command, or presence, P47 sits up and turns to them with iron-colored eyes.

Brian is not proud of the way he shrieks.

Simone laughs, a honk that echoes throughout the room. “You _dick,_ ” she wheezes, striding over to P47 and giving him a shove. “You’re gonna make him quit before he starts. Be nice.”

“I have done nothing wrong,” P47 intones. His words are slow and careful, his voice scratchy. “I do not understand.”

“Oh, you old tin can, I’m gonna miss you.” Simone drapes her arms around his shoulders and pulls him to her chest, stroking his arm. Like they’re friends. Like Simone cares. “I’m still gonna visit, I promise, I’ll just be one room over.”

P47 blinks, his eyelids shuttering closed and then open again in a stiff gesture. “Where are you going?”

Brian gives a little wave. He’s not sure if he should shake hands, or...? “Hi! I’m Brian Gilbert. I’m doing a PhD in robotics and engineering, and I’ll be taking over for Simone during my time here. Is that okay?”

The AI, of course, does not have a choice, but Brian tries to exude friendliness and professionalism. He nervously tugs on his coat lapels.

P47 gives him another unnatural blink. “Okay.”

It’s hard to tell, from that dull one-word response, if he’s irritated or resigned.

Simone pulls herself upright and gives a quick rap of her knuckles on P47’s head. “Feel free to dive right in, Brian. Page me if you need me. I’ll be back at lunchtime.”

“Okay,” he says, in unison with P47. Brian turns to look at him, startled. Simone gives them both a sad smile and closes the door behind her.

➣

Brian sets himself up at the little desk, unloading his messenger bag, arranging notebooks and pens and his laptop in an attempt to stall. P47 is silent, but the dead air hangs between them. He knows he’s being watched. Finally, he pulls out the rolling stool, boots up a program on the screen, and settles in next to his new charge.

He can get a look at him properly now, without Simone’s boisterous energy filling the room. P47 is slightly taller than Brian, built to be lean and solid. The wires pulsing faintly under his skin follow the cords of his muscle implants. His face is sharp, with a pointed jaw and nose. Eyes of slate are deeply set under a fringe of jet black hair that curls around his ears and neck. His torso is bare, his lower half covered in the standard-issue black sweats that bear the Polygon logo. He was designed to be a looker, that’s for sure. Brian is certain he would be sold as a companion, if he ever made it to market.

But, well, he’s getting ahead of himself.

He offers what he hopes is a comforting smile. “I’m gonna run some diagnostics on you, to start, get a feel for what’s going on in there. I need to know your specs, too. Feel free to walk me through it, though, I want you to be comfortable. Is there anything you want me to know?”

P47 has not yet laid back down. He stares at Brian. “You are not Simone.”

Brian huffs an uneasy laugh. “No, I’m not. Did you understand me when I said why I was here? I’m—”

“I know who you are, Brian Gilbert.” P47 narrows his eyes, the subtlest change in expression. “You do not need to repeat yourself. You are not Simone.”

Brian feels chilled to his core. He’s gonna get a dressing down from this AI on his first day and go home a shaking mess. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and straightens his back.

“No, P47. I’m sorry I’m not Simone. She’s not going to work on you anymore, but you’ll see her again later today. Is it all right if I start my tests now?”

P47, surprisingly, scoffs like a teenager. “Whatever.”

He lays down, and while Brian plugs the wires into P47’s chest port, he hears a sigh.

“Simone has left me,” the AI says, his voice pitched down to a lower volume. “They all leave me. Every person here has worked on me. All that is left is you.”

Brian closes his eyes again at the ache in his chest. He has a feeling that he’s the last resort—that if he fails, they will unplug P47 for good, wipe his drives and send him away to become scrap parts. It’s a depressing but common reality. Brian really, really hopes he can prevent it.

He gets to work.

➣

P47 is quiet until lunchtime. He sits stock still and lets Brian plug and unplug, rewire, rewrite, in endless loops. By 11:30, Brian has a nice little compilation of files on P47, records of what he is (a Generation One LL), when he was built (ten months ago), and a list of every incident in which he’s gone against the coding in his factory settings.

That last file is a hefty one.

“Okay!” Brian says aloud, breaking the silence. He gently claps a hand on P47’s chest cavity. “We’ve got our work cut out for us, buddy. I’ve gotta get some food into this human body, and you can recharge, all right?”

P47 tilts his head minutely toward Brian. “Simone?”

“She’ll come. After we eat, I’ll bring her back, I promise.”

He resumes staring at the steel domed ceiling. “I do not trust promises.”

Brian doesn’t have an answer to that, so he just flicks off the monitor above P47’s head and slips out the door.

➣

In the break room, Simone is sitting with three other humans and an AI, her long legs stretched underneath the table. He vaguely remembers being introduced to the two beside Tara—Clayton and Allegra. The AI has a female chassis and a short, blunt haircut that surrounds her square face. Something about her puts Brian instantly at ease, nothing like the jittery nerves he felt around the MIT AI. He sits, hesitantly, at the end of the table.

Simone waves him down. “Come, come! Brian, this is Jenna.” She gestures to the AI next to her; Jenna waves, her movements fluid and assured. “She’s one of mine. Dare I say my best work yet.”

Jenna actually blushes, the faintest hint of pink light glowing beneath her cheeks. Nice touch. “Simone is too sentimental. Soon I will be ready for market and then what will she do?”

“Bold of you to assume I’m not gonna buy you myself, sweetheart.”

Tara mutters “conflict of interest” under her breath, but she’s smiling anyway.

Jenna reaches out to shake hands, and Brian takes it with some surprise. Her skin is cool and satiny. “Did you name yourself, Jenna?”

“A little of both,” she says, nodding to Simone. “I said I did not need one, but she insisted.”

Brian blinks at Simone and the rest of the group. “Do you...often name your AI?”

Tara shrugged. “Sure, if they want to be. Easier to keep track of them, and it gets to be a mouthful, spouting random numbers and letters all the time. We have a couple other almost-finished models wandering around, you’re bound to see them eventually.”

Brian wonders, as he pushes a sushi roll around on his plate, if anyone’s ever thought to call P47 something that wasn’t random numbers and letters.

“So how is he?” Brian startles; he hadn’t realized Simone had come around to sit next to him.

He thinks for a moment while he chews. “Moody,” he finally says.

“Ha! Yeah, he is. Don’t let him bully you. He gets grumpy sitting in that room all the time.”

“He said everyone leaves him. He’s so...sad.”

Simone gives a pained smile and puts her hand on his arm. “He’s had a rough start. But we’re gonna fix him. Code the moodiness right out of him, eventually.”

Brian doesn’t believe her—his first day hasn’t even ended, and he’s not confident about P47’s future—but he just hums in agreement. “You don’t let him out? He’s been in the same lab the whole time?”

“He doesn’t...” Simone chews on the words, her gaze drifting over to Jenna, talking animatedly with the others. “He doesn’t do well, on the outside. Even if that outside is just the rest of this building. It’s another part of the code we can’t seem to set right; some kind of sensory overload, and he just crashes. Falls right to the ground, sometimes.” Brian thinks she’s finished her point, but she adds, quietly: “He attacked Jenna once. He gets upset, when he interacts with other AI. I don’t know if like doesn’t recognize like, or if it recognizes it too much. You know?”

They both consider this, for a minute. Brian sets his chopsticks down and looks at Simone, steeling himself.

“You’ve put me on a dead-end project, haven’t you?”

She doesn’t even try to look ashamed. “I can’t discuss this with you on your first day, kid, I’ll blow it all out of the water. But—look, all I can say is, try whatever you want on him. It won’t matter if you mess up spectacularly. Because—”

“Because you’ll terminate him either way,” he finishes for her.

She sighs and stands, gathering her trash. “I’ll walk you back to your lab. I promised him I would come say hi.”

Brian wonders what else the Polygon team isn’t telling him.

➣

Simone stays for the rest of the lunch hour. P47 is elated to see her; Brian wonders if maybe it feels like so much longer, to him, than just a few short hours ago. There’s a brief flicker of panic on his face when Simone gets up to leave, but she places a soothing hand on his shoulder, alongside another promise that she’ll be back tomorrow.

The lab is ringing with silence when the door slams shut behind her. P47 immediately turns his back on Brian to lay on his side and promptly begins to ignore him.

“Well, hey, that’s fine with me,” Brian says. “We can do work on the back hatch instead. Are you more comfortable sitting this way?”

“Whatever.”

Brian rolls his eyes a little. He had no idea a robot could have such petulant mood swings, but maybe that’s a P47 exclusive. Lucky him.

He hums while he unscrews the panel on P47’s back and gently sets it on the desk. He’s fiddling with the wires when P47 pipes up: “Are you from here?”

“Yeah,” Brian says, absentmindedly, and then takes a chance. “Do you know where ‘here’ is?”

“Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, coordinates 39°17’22 N, 76°36’55 W.”

“Good, good,” Brian murmurs. “Can you tell me what else you know about your surroundings?”

“I am in the Polygon Laboratories, room number five, in a building owned by Johns Hopkins University,” he recites mechanically. “We are zero-point-two miles away from the Inner Harbor and four-point-one miles away from the university campus.”

“Good!” Brian chirps. “That’s an excellent sign for your cognitive processor. I need to disconnect this wire for just a second, so stay st—”

“Who are you?”

Brian’s hands freeze. Oh, no, has he already forgotten? They just had this conversation—

“No, no.” P47 shakes his head, as if he can sense Brian’s alarm. “I know that you are Brian Gilbert. But who is Brian Gilbert?”

His shoulders sag in relief. “You’re asking me about myself, then?”

“That is correct.”

With a pleased little smile, Brian resumes his work on the wires. “Well, I was born here. I did undergrad at Johns Hopkins, and then robotics and engineering at MIT. I’m really glad to be back in town. My mom’s still here, and I have two siblings, a brother and sister named Laura and Patrick.”

P47 seems to be listening, or pretending to, so Brian carries on. He tells him about dorm room shenanigans with Jonah, the songs they used to write, the boy he dallied with at MIT for a few months, the crazy video he made with Laura earlier this year, the law firm where Patrick just made partner—

His hands still again, for the briefest moment. P47 offers him a peripheral glance.

“Brian?”

“Oh my god,” he whispers, then slowly breaks into a grin. “Hey, P47—how do you feel about having a name?”

“I do not understand.”

Brian wheels around the other side of the table to look at him. “Do you like being called P47?”

He considers him for a long moment, those steel eyes unblinking. “I have never thought about it. I am P47-G1LL.”

“Do you think it would be okay if I called you Pat?”

He sits up, then, and tilts his head, never breaking his stare. “Why would you call me anything else?”

“Well, it’s easier, don’t you think? And more...personal. It might help you feel more like an individual. Plus—” He shrugs, giving a bashful smile. “Your name, it kind of looks like my brother’s. Like Pat. I think you could look like a Pat, too.”

“Is this why they call her Jenna, and not J39-ST0B?”

“Yeah! Exactly! It’s like—it’s like a nickname? Sometimes people call me Bri. I bet Simone gets called Sim. Do you understand?”

A blink. “I do.”

“Is it all right, then, to call you Pat?”

That same unblinking stare; Brian can’t parse it, and he’s afraid he’s gone too far, but then P47 nods twice.

“Yes, that is...that is fine. I would like to be a Pat.”

“HELL yeah!” Brian whoops and punches the air. “Welcome to the world, Pat. We’re gonna get you out there in no time at all.”

Pat smiles.

➣

“You...gave him a name?” Simone asks at the end of the day.

Brian ducks his head, sheepish. “Is it...is it okay, that I did?”

“Mm.” Simone waves her head a bit. “I guess so. I would just worry that you’d get attached, is all.” Brian bites his tongue, but Simone offers him a smile. “Pat, huh? I can see it. Short and to the point. I kinda like it.”

“Thanks,” Brian says, beaming. “It’s my brother’s name. It just sort of came to me. At least I’ll never forget it.”

“Well, Brian,” Simone says, linking their arms as they head for the door, “I don’t think it’s possible to forget about a robot like Pat.”

➣

For the rest of Brian’s first week, Pat is more or less cooperative. He lets Brian chatter on about whatever odd thought crosses his mind, and lights up when Simone stops by, and stays perfectly still when Brian has nimble fingers skittering over wires.

Brian also hits Pat with a series of tests, without calling them tests. Pat, for all his faulty programming—or perhaps because of it—seems to have a lot of opinions. Likes and dislikes, and the encyclopedic contents of the Internet in his processor to back him up. You can code an AI to your own very specific preferences, and most buyers do, but the technology has come far enough to emulate an organic, ever-changing brain. Brian can’t wait to get all up in this robot biz.

He starts small. On his third day, he boots up Spotify in the background behind the mountain of programs open on his laptop and sets it to the most random, eclectic playlist he has. It plays softly around them, echoing faintly off the walls while Brian writes and rewrites lines of code.

Pat shows no recognition for the first few songs, a smattering of folksy indie stuff and Top 40 pop tracks. The next one starts up, a bass-heavy, early 90s rock song.

Pat blinks. Brian jots it down in his notebook.

“It’s okay if I play music, right?” Brian asks, cutting through the singer’s wails. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

“It’s fine.” Pat blinks again, his head tilting half an inch toward the speaker. Brian smiles to himself and turns back to the screen.

Two songs later, the heavy metal kicks in, truly loud and bone-rattling. It’s not Brian’s taste at all, but he’s glad it came up, because he wants to see—

Pat turns his head to fully look at him now. “What is this?”

“The music?” Brian tries to suppress his glee. “Uh, this is...” He double-checks the app. “Slipknot.”

Pat’s eyes lock on some spot in the distance, his brain no doubt scanning the cloud for information. “Oh. Okay. There was another one. Before this.”

Brian skips back a few tracks. “I bet you’re thinking of this one. Nirvana.”

“Yes.” Pat closes his eyes, opens them again slowly. “Thank you for the information.”

“You’re welcome, Pat.” Brian switches playlists, and for the rest of the afternoon, he reads off bands and song titles when Pat asks, which is often, and giggles to himself at the thought of Pat the Robot being a metal-head, figuratively and literally.

◘

At the start of his second week, Brian feels ecstatic with the progress he’s made, and maybe a little too cock-sure of his status as a wunderkind. As soon as he opens the door to Polygon Labs, he’s put into his place.

There’s a horrific screeching noise ricocheting down the hallway, some awful cross between a malfunctioning printer and a dial-up tone. He hears a great, clattering crash of metal on metal, a yelp from Simone, and then dead silence.

He sprints down the hall to Lab #5, skidding around the corner and through the open door. Simone, Clayton, and Tara are circled around the empty table, chests heaving. It takes Brian a moment to realize that the table is empty because Pat is crumpled on the floor, limbs akimbo, his back panel open and smoking faintly. Jenna the AI is hovering just outside the doorway, staring, her arms crossed tightly.

The three humans look up at the same time. Simone is hurriedly wiping her cheeks. Tara sighs at Brian and gestures aimlessly to the limp chassis—Pat—on the ground, and steps over him toward the door.

“He’s all yours,” she says on her way past Brian, and he can’t decipher the tone in her voice—anger, disappointment, resignation. She doesn’t give Brian a chance to answer before she disappears down the hall, office door resolutely shut behind her.

Brian turns back to the scene. Clayton is kneeling beside Pat, carefully closing up his back panel. “Here,” he says to Brian, taking both of Pat’s hands in his own, “I’ll help you lift him back up.”

Brian nods mutely. They get him back on the table and Simone watches, fussing her hands all over. Once Pat is safely laid down—and definitely, definitely not awake or powered on—Brian turns to Simone.

“So...ha, what?” He laughs, breathy and nervous, awash with anxiety.

“He crashed,” Simone says quietly. “Shorted out, I think. The AIs charge overnight, and it’s connected to the building’s power source. When we came in and switched everything on, he...”

“I think his battery surges, takes in more power than it can hold,” Clayton inserts. “Problem is, we’ve changed it about half a dozen times now, and we can’t get his energy levels to go down.”

“Stupid, stupid,” Simone murmurs to herself, wiping her eyes again and shaking out her hands. “It’s fine. It happens. He’ll be fine. I’m sorry you had to see that, Brian.”

“It’s all right,” Brian answers softly, running his fingers along the skin of Pat’s arm. His chassis is still hot from the surge. “What do I do now?”

“We usually remove the battery and write off the whole day while he rests. You’ve probably lost some code in there. God, Brian, I’m so sorry, this is such a waste—”

“It’s not,” Brian assures. “I’ll handle him.”

With a quiet whirring noise and a tinny chime, Pat’s eyes open, wide and alert. Simone hides a sob behind her hand, runs an anxious hand through her hair, and leaves the room without another word. Jenna, through the doorway, casts a sympathetic look at Brian before following obediently.

Pat pushes himself up on his hands and levies his gaze at Clayton. “Good morning, Dr. Ashley.”

“Hello, P47,” Clayton responds in an even voice. “Doing all right?”

“That is not my name,” Pat says, ignoring the question. Brian feels a little swell of pride at that. “You may call me Pat.”

“Apologies,” he says smoothly. “I’ll remember that next time. Gilbert, I’ll leave you to it.”

“Thanks.” Together, they watch Clayton go.

“I am cognizant,” Pat announces to Brian, though his voice modulator has a weird pitch to it. “I am aware of what happened. My battery caused a power surge, which in turn caused my processor to freeze and disable. This is not unusual.”

Brian turns to him and frowns. “I didn’t think you’d be able to remember any of that.”

Pat does not respond.

“What do you usually do, after that happens?”

“Nothing. I will spend the day turned off, if my system allows it. Simone will be sad. Dr. Long will talk about decommissioning me. I will wait for it to inevitably happen again.”

Brian pushes his hands beneath his glasses and rubs his eyes. “Okay. Okay. Well, only part of that will happen, and nobody’s going to decommission you. I’m gonna remove your entire battery and spend the day taking it apart; that means you’ll be off the whole time. I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Okay,” Pat says in the flat, neutral tone that means he doesn’t like it, but doesn’t have a choice. He rolls over so Brian can access the back of his neck.

Brian takes a deep breath, in-one-two hold-one-two out-one-two, then goes to fetch his screwdriver.

➣

At the end of the day, he has nothing.

He’d kept the same playlist going, the one with the ear-splitting heavy metal, just so he could feel his brain rattling around in his skull. He zapped himself twice on the battery, and at one point caused the lights to flicker for half a second; Tara had stuck her head in and fixed him with a stern look, for that one. It’s for naught, because as the clock nears six, he’s only left with a battery stripped to its core, parts scattered, and a streak of grease on his forehead.

Brian sinks into his chair and stares at the back of Pat’s head, open and vulnerable with all of its exposed wires and the gaping port on his neck where the battery should be. It’s not lost on him, how somber the situation is—he may as well be holding Pat’s heart in his hands, the thing that keeps him plowing forward, pumping figurative blood and breath throughout his body. Though he knows it’s impossible, he’s half expecting Pat to turn on and turn over, to say hello even when he’s spilling wires and fibers down to the floor.

He sighs and scrubs his face and decides to call it a night, before Simone wanders in and gently ushers him out of the building herself. There’s no more to be done for Pat, not right now, and Brian feels an ache in his chest at the idea of leaving him here—alone, abandoned, like a rundown car in someone’s yard. The one you say you’ll fix up one day, but never do.

He turns off the light and leaves.

◘

It takes Brian another full working day, but eventually the battery is as fixed as it will ever get, for now, and he thinks a little prayer to himself as he slides it back into Pat’s neck.

Minutes later, after the software and the drives have restarted, Pat’s eyes open wide. The wires beneath his skin light up and then fade just as quickly, various beeps and tones sounding from his chest port. When it looks like he’s settled, Brian gives it another long moment before leaning into his range of vision.

“Hey there, buddy.”

Pat locks eyes with him; he can almost see the drives whirring in his brain, searching for recognition, and then— “Brian.”

“That’s me.” Brian grins wide and proud. “Good to see you, Pat. Body check?”

“I feel fine, if that is what you mean.”

“Excellent!” Brian wheels back over to his laptop. “Gonna run a quick scan, just to be sure, and then I wanna do some mobility tests today.”

His usual blink. “Okay.”

After the computer declares Pat as functional as he can be, Brian takes his hands and helps him off the table and to his feet.

It’s the first time he’s seen Pat standing, fully upright and on his own instead of being dragged across the floor. He really is a remarkable thing, with his back ramrod straight, the fibers in his arms and shoulders, his fluffy black hair. The chassis was designed with care, even if the drives weren’t. Brian takes a slow walk around him, and an annoying voice in the far reaches of his mind flicks his subconscious and tells him not to be such a perv.

But, listen, Brian’s only a man.

He directs Pat to do the basics, turning his head, rolling his neck, stretching his arms, all of which he does with ease. He wobbles a bit, when he walks the length of the room and back, his legs unsteady. When he reaches Brian again, he stumbles just enough for Brian to catch him by the arms, quickly righting him again.

“Hey, hey, you’re all right,” he soothes. “That was better than I thought! Your muscles are just like ours; they need to be used regularly. Gotta grease the wheels, literally. When was the last time you even stood up like this?”

“Six months, seventeen days, nine hours, and eleven seconds.”

Brian stares at him, bewildered. He’s not sure what’s worse—that Pat hasn’t stood up in six months, or that he clocked that amount of time down to the second.

“Oh,” is all he can say, blinking. “Yeah, we...we should shoot for a little more often than that.”

Pat tries to turn on his heel, to walk back to the table, but this time when he stumbles again he falls backwards into Brian’s arms; Brian lets out an _“oof!”_ and the two of them tumble to the floor in an ungraceful heap. He tries to right himself to a sitting position while cradling one hundred and fifty pounds of robot, because Pat’s gone slack next to him.

“Okay, we’re fine, we’re fine,” he says through clenched teeth. He scootches over enough to prop his back against the desk and shifts so that Pat’s head is resting on his shoulder. “Okay,” he says, more to himself than Pat, “we can just stay like this for a minute, that’s fine.”

“I am sorry,” Pat says. His forehead is cool against Brian’s neck. “I did not mean to knock you over. Would it be all right if we kept this position for just a moment longer?”

“Sure.” Brian feels his whole face heat up. This close, he has a truly excellent view of Pat’s profile, the hard angles of his face, the synthetic strands of hair soft against his cheek. “Take—take your time.”

Pat closes his eyes. “Is this something else you will have to fix?”

“Probably, yeah. I might have to take apart your legs. Sorry in advance.”

Pat considers this for a long moment. “I trust you,” he responds quietly.

If Brian’s not careful, he’s going to respond with something incredibly stupid and inappropriate, so he settles on the first thing his brain can come up with and spits it out. “Do you wanna see my dog?”

“...what?”

“My dog.” Brian scrambles for his back pocket, to get his phone. “Back at my mom’s house. His name is Moose and he’s a big old dork. She sent me some new pictures this morning—here.” He pulls them up and holds the phone in front of Pat’s face.

Pat studies the screen, analyzing it. “I do not think that is what moose look like,” he says, “but then, I have also never seen a dog, so I cannot say for sure.”

Brian giggles. “All dogs are pretty weird, when it comes down to it. Maybe you can meet Moose one day.”

“Dogs go...” Pat glances up, thinking. “Dogs go awoo.”

“Awoo?”

“Yes. They make noise. Awoo.”

“You’re silly, Pat. They make a lot of different noises. I guess ‘awoo’ can be one of them, but that reminds me more of wolves. Which are also a type of dog, so I suppose you’re not wrong.”

“Awoo.”

“It sounds like this.” Brian clears his throat, pitches his voice up so it echoes around the ceiling above them. “Awoo!”

“Awoo!” Pat parrots back at him.

They volley back and forth, then Brian switches to barking while Pat continues a steady stream of awoo-ing, and they make such a ruckus that eventually Simone bangs the door open and tells them to cut it the hell out because some of us are working, _Brian._

Brian collapses into laughter on Pat’s chest. Simone catches Pat’s eye, and he grins at her, wide and goofy and happy.

◉

You are supposed to be Pat, now, though your processor still defaults to P47-G1LL. You still do not know what to make of it, and of Brian Gilbert’s intentions regarding you. You know that he would drop the name, if you asked, and you could go back to being the unimportant AI you have been for all of your short life. But you want to try, just a little bit longer, just to see.

You wonder how much Brian actually knows. You do not know if he knows how much is missing from your file, the one he downloaded that very first day. Parts of it were intentionally redacted by Dr. Long, but most of it was taken away with your creator, all the things that were never documented and never told to another living soul. It is knowledge that will likely never be discovered or fixed. This is why you know it is a waste for Polygon to even keep you in their labs, using precious time and resources. It is a waste for Brian to be here, holding you, laughing with you, taking care of you.

Fixing you.

You have never laughed before. You are surprised at how easily it comes to you, once Brian starts; it is infectious. And it is going to hurt, when he fails, when he gives up, when he leaves because you know he is going to.

You just hope it will be over quickly. You hope you will be granted mercy, when the time comes.


End file.
